


Sorrow

by Idrelle_Miocovani



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief, I had a great need to let Sebastian comfort Hawke after All That Remains ok, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 21:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20378710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idrelle_Miocovani/pseuds/Idrelle_Miocovani
Summary: Three weeks and he has heard nothing from her. On a dark, rainy night, he makes his way to the Hawke Estate, desperate to find her, comfort her, console her. Her sorrow should not be borne alone.





	Sorrow

Under the lashing rain and harrowing thunder of a spring storm, the Hawke Estate stood tall, dark and silent. It loomed over the other buildings in its Hightown district, windows dark, a shadow reminiscent of its days of abandonment. Of the days it had laid empty, gathering dust in the name of the Amell family.

Sebastian pushed the door open, shutting it quickly as he slipped through the gap and into the vaulted foyer. Maker preserve him, he never imagined he would be in the situation where he would break into a friend’s house, but concerned outweighed propriety. After spending the past ten minutes intermittently knocking and waiting for an answer that never came, he had decided to let himself into the estate to find her.

He pushed back his sodden hood and ran a hand through damp hair as he looked around. The storm had caught him by surprise. He was halfway across Hightown when it hit, and he was soaked thoroughly. “Hawke?”

His voice echoed through the empty hall.

Sebastian took off his cloak, threw the sodden wool over one arm and crossed the foyer. His footsteps echoed on the hewed stone floor and left behind a trail of wet prints as he walked further into the estate.

An eerie silence hung over the empty hall. Bodahn and Sandal were gone, though Sandal’s tools lay strewn about in a disordered jumble on a nearby table. A mountain of unread letters was piled on Ariane’s writing desk. There was no sign of Orana, nor any of the other household staff.

The fireplace was dead, with nothing but a bed of ash left in the hearth. The iron-wrought chandelier remained unlit. Candles had been snuffed out. On the mezzanine above the hall, heavy velvet drapes were unfurled and drawn across, blocking out the outside world. A thin layer of dust coated the surfaces. It was as if time stood still, an image of better days, happier days, preserved in the dust.

The Hawke Estate was a ghost.

“Maker,” Sebastian breathed as he glanced around the silent hall. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps she was gone—dismissed the staff and left. He wouldn’t blame her, not after what happened. Grief sought loneliness like infection sought a wound.

Still, it wasn’t like Ariane to leave without notice. Her sister, Bethany, was in the Gallows. If he knew Ariane—and he thought he did—she would want to stay close to her family. Or what remained of it.

Sebastian gently hung his cloak over the back of a chair. He knelt next to the hearth, adding fresh wood from a smartly collected pile in the corner. A tinderbox had been left on the mantel. He lit a fire, coaxing the flames into a roaring blaze, a warm glow lighting the dark hall.

Satisfied, he rose to his feet. Across the hall, perched in the centre of a long, narrow table, stood a vase. A bouquet of white lilies drooped over the edge. They were dead.

His hand clenched into a fist. Why would she keep them? This last memento of a depraved killer, the very thing that incited her mother’s death.

Sebastian strode across the hall, seized the lilies and threw them into the hearth. The dry flowers caught fire, flame licking the petals, charring them to ash. They disappeared into the fire, nothing more than a memory.

“Do Chantry brothers usually make a practice of breaking into their friends’ homes and destroying their property, or is it just you?”

Sebastian looked up at the sound of Ariane’s voice. He stepped away from the fire, eyes searching the mezzanine above, but he did not see her. She was a ghost in her own home.

“Isabela is right,” he said. “You need to change your locks, they’re far too easy to open.”

“I have changed them,” Ariane’s voice replied. “Twice. I happen to have very insistent acquaintances who see a locked door and consider it an invitation.”

An awkward lump formed in his throat. “Hawke, I didn’t intend to offend—”

“You didn’t. I’m being… difficult.” She swept into the light, resting her hands on the balustrade. She wore a simple dark blue dress, a long shawl thrown about her shoulders for warmth. Her pale blonde hair was unwashed and free from its usual braid, falling to her waist in a tangled mess. Her feet were bare. “I heard you knock.”

He flushed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have intruded. It was an impulsive decision, I was…” He glanced up at her. She was gaunt and ashen, her freckles barely visible, her lips dry, her eyes puffy and red. The telltale glimmer of sardonic humour was all but gone from her face. “Where are your servants?”

“Away,” she said. “Everyone deserves a holiday.”

“You’ve been alone? All this time?”

“I have Alaron.”

Sebastian exhaled sharply. “A mabari hound is a faithful companion, yes,” he said, turning from the hearth. “But he can hardly make sure you’re fed and cared for—”

“You do realize I didn’t grow up as nobility?” Ariane interrupted, a scowl darkening her brow. “I lived on a farm. In a backwater town. I can look after myself. My first memory is my mother asking to make sure Carver didn’t trip and fall face-first into the hearth while she cooked dinner.”

Sebastian walked to the stairs, climbing them step by step. “And Bethany?”

“She was too smart to trip and fall face-first into the hearth,” Ariane said. “She sat on a chair, well out of the way, and watched while Carver and I bickered over why I was allowed to tell him what to do.” She sighed heavily. “Fifteen years later and we were still having the same argument. Almost right up until that last day. You’d think we didn’t have an original thought between us. Poor Bethany and Mother, listening to us yell the same words back and forth every day for years on end…” Her grasp tightened on the stone balustrade, turning her knuckles and fingertips white.

Sebastian reached the landing. “It’s the nature of the eldest sibling,” he said. “Too overbearing for their own good. They always want the final say, particularly where the youngest is concerned.”

Ariane snorted. “The youngest is the most spoiled.”

“And the eldest is the most favoured,” Sebastian countered.

“Spoken like a true youngest child.”

“And here you are adhering to the stereotypes of the eldest child with absolute grace.”

A small smile struggled to pull at the corner of her lips. It faded as soon as it began. “What were your brothers like?”

“I…” He froze, startled by her question.

“You don’t have to answer if you’d rather not,” Ariane said quickly. “I’m sorry, my mouth ran away on me again, I didn’t think before I asked—”

Sebastian closed the space between them, standing beside her, forearms resting on the balustrade. “I haven’t spoken of them in many years. To anyone. Not even Elthina.” He watched the glimmer of firelight dancing on the flagstones below. “Evander was severe. He was the eldest and knew the responsibilities that came with it. If you were to ask what he was like as a child, the answer is he didn’t have a childhood. He knew he was the heir. He knew he was born to rule Starkhaven. It was a constant in his daily life, overshadowing every decision he made, every act he took.” He shook his head. “I was jealous of him once, of how easily he fit into the role he was given. But when I think of him now, all I feel is regret. Regret that he never had the chance to live a life that was truly of his own making.”

Ariane nodded quietly and drew her shawl around her shoulders.

“And Lucien…” Sebastian paused, brow knitting together. How long had it been since he had last seen Lucien face-to-face? It had been three years since the assassination that took them all from this world, and longer still since he and Lucien were in the same city. With quiet discomfort, Sebastian realized he struggled to summon a memory of his brother more recent than the shining, immortal vestiges of their youth “What I remember of him, he was the mediator. Between Evander, the stickler for rules and regulations and propriety, and me, the one who rejected it all on principle.”

“I have a hard time imagining that,” Ariane said.

“Imagining what?”

“You. Being improper.” She ran her fingers through her long hair, scooping it off her neck and letting it fall over her shoulder. She twisted a lock round and round as she spoke. “Then again you are the one who decided that an unanswered knock was best resolved by picking the lock.”

Sebastian groaned. “You will never let me live that down, will you?”

“No,” Ariane replied. “But if I’m feeling generous, I won’t mention it to Varric or Isabela.”

“Thank you, Hawke. I appreciate it.”

“Note that I said _if.”_ Ariane’s fingers untwisted the coil of hair. “Your brothers… your parents… what’s the last thing you remember of them?”

Her question pierced him harder than he anticipated, her question stinging with unresolved pain. The pain of loss, of vengeance, of the knowledge that even though Lady Harimann had been brought to justice, it could never be made right. “Hawke, I’d rather not—”

“Please.” Ariane turned, blue eyes shining, desperation edging into her voice. “Just… please. Humour me.”

Sebastian sighed heavily. “The day I was exiled… Evander and Lucien watched without comment. Our parents delivered their ultimatum and then I was gone. Gone from my home, gone from Starkhaven, gone from my family. Sometimes I remember that day clearly, and other times… I wonder how much of my imagination is filling in the gaps. Some days I cannot be certain I remember my mother’s eyes or my father’s voice, or my brothers’ faces. The longer I live, the more they are lost to time and memory.”

“I can’t remember what my father looks like,” Ariane said quietly. “I have no paintings, no records. And Carver… No matter how hard I try to hold onto him, even he is starting to fade.”

Heavy rain lashed at the windows, a distant roar shattering against thick panes of glass. Sebastian leaned against the balustrade, glancing around the dark, shadowy hall. The stale air was cold and dry. Beside him, Ariane shivered into her shawl.

She looked so lost, so exhausted, frozen anguished carved into every part of her being. He wanted to put an arm around her shoulders, draw her near, draw her to comfort.

_That’s why you came, is it not?_

“Perhaps we should move closer to the fire,” Sebastian suggested.

“I’m fine.”

“It is cold.”

“You’re only saying that because you’re soaked to the bone,” Ariane replied. “I’m not the one who decided to brave the elements to barge through my door uninvited.” She turned and swept away, bare feet padding along hard flagstones.

“Hawke—” Sebastian followed her.

“What?” she snapped, turning abruptly and taking another staircase. She flew up the steps, the hem of her skirt whispering across the stone.

Sebastian paused at the bottom of the staircase, one foot resting on the first step, hand on the balustrade. “It’s been three weeks.”

Ariane stopped on the landing. She turned, tugging at her shawl. She blinked. “It has?”

_Time means nothing to her. Not now. Not when she can’t process what has happened._ He hesitated, fingers gripping the balustrade, frozen to the stone. _Go to her, you fool. She needs someone. Help her._

“Three weeks with no word, no messages, no sign that you were even still in Kirkwall,” Sebastian continued. “No one should be left to fight their grief for that long alone.”

“I’m not fighting,” Ariane said hoarsely. “I have nothing to… I have nothing. I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” He took a step up the stairs. “Believe me, Hawke—Ariane.”

Something unspoken passed over her face. She was Hawke. She was always Hawke. And now he had made it personal.

“Ariane,” he began again. “I know.”

She shook her head. “No, no, you don’t, don’t pretend you do, you know nothing of what this is like—”

“Of course I don’t!” he said, taking another step up the stairs. She towered over him, a pale ghost on the landing above, trembling, shaking, tears shining in her eyes. “What happened to your mother is an unspeakable tragedy. What that man did, what we found…”

The rage he had felt in that foundry, kneeling beside Ariane, hand on her shoulder as she cradled her mother’s dead form, flared deep within him. Rage that she had, yet again, been forced to contend with a personal atrocity. Rage at the unfairness the Maker seemed determined to throw at her.

“My family was torn from me,” he said. “And it was a very long time before I could claim even the semblance of being fine.”

Ariane’s hands fell to her sides. “Why are you here, Sebastian?” she asked. Her blue eyes narrowed, piercing and cold as she watched him mount the stairs towards her. “What possessed you to think I need any of this right now?”

“Because you vanished,” he replied. “Because you’ve disappeared for three weeks, because we’ve seen hide nor hair of you. Because I care about you, and you shouldn’t have to bear your grief alone.”

Her lips pursed into a fine line. “What?” she snapped. “You think to be my priest? To be a listening ear and bear my confessions before the Maker?”

“No,” he said, reaching the landing. “I think to be your friend.”

She lifted her chin. Despite her stony gaze, there were tears in her eyes, clinging to her lashes, threatening to fall. “No calling on the Maker? You aren’t going to tell me to close my eyes and pray and hope the pain is taken away?”

“No,” he said quietly.

Ariane blinked, tears glistening on her cheeks. Her lower lip trembled and then, in a rush, she threw her arms around him and pulled him close, burying her face in his neck. She wept openly, bravely, no longer holding back. He held her, arms wrapped firmly around her, until her tears came to a shuddering stop.

They sat together in silence on the landing, her head resting against his shoulder, his arm around her, listening to the rain outside. Ariane slipped her hand into his and he held it tight.

“I’m scared I will forget her,” she said quietly, after some time. “Even Carver is slipping from my mind, from my memory. And my father… He’s long gone. I don’t want to lose Mother like that.” She sighed, her breath a shuddering exhale. “I haven’t touched her room, I can’t even go in there. I tried once, the week after it happened. And all I could think was what we found her as—” She stopped abruptly. She shook her head and leaned into him.

Sebastian ran a thumb across the back of her hand.

“Maybe we’re cursed. All of us Hawkes, fated to die horrible deaths.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“History is working against me.”

“If I know anything about you, Ariane, you define your own history. Regardless of what the Maker has to say about it.”

Sebastian pulled her close, and she collapsed into him, eyes closed, pale face stark in the encroaching darkness. He heard the soft padding of Alaron behind him, and a moment later the mabari butted him with his head. The dog bayed, seeking a pat from Sebastian, then lay down beside Ariane. Ariane’s hand snaked through her hound’s fur, patting him intuitively.

“I’m glad you got rid of them,” she murmured. “The lilies.”

He nodded. He glanced at Alaron. “Should I go?”

Alaron raised his head and growled.

“Stay,” Ariane murmured. She opened her eyes and gazed up at him. “Please. Besides, Alaron wants you to.”

Sebastian chuckled. “Maker knows I cannot displease your dog.”

“My dog knows what’s best,” Ariane countered, the hint of a smile forming on her lips.

“Then I will stay.”

Ariane kissed his cheek, her lips soft and warm. “Sebastian?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.” 


End file.
